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Dysgraphia & Other Writing Disorders

Dygraphia is a brain-related dysfunction relating to 1) the fine motor skills required to control a pen or pencil and 2) the ability to express ideas and concepts in writing.

Children with dysgraphia have difficulty with anything involving writing, especially printing. Their handwriting is poor and they often have trouble with grammar, punctuation, capitalization and spelling, which, in turn, affects their ability to construct sentences and organize paragraphs. Even when mastering number concepts is not a problem, accuracy in calculations can suffer as there is a lot of writing required in math calculations.

As you might imagine, these children develop a fear of writing on top of the neurological dysfunction itself because when doing schoolwork, they are often required to write, rewrite and rewrite again. This takes time for any child, but for those who have a writing disorder, it’s torture.

Because of the frequency with which handwriting is involved in every academic subject, children with dysgraphia face tremendous challenges. It is especially important for these children to be provided with acceptable alternatives for recording notes and assignments and for demonstrating what they’ve learned, which, after all, is the point.

However, researchers have discovered that children who struggle with printing letters legibly have an easier time if taught and allowed to write in cursive. Theories are that the continuity of putting the pen or pencil down on paper and not picking it up before moving to the next letter makes it easier for dysgraphic students to write and write legibly by hand. Researchers have also found that students who take notes by hand learn and retain considerably than those typing on computers or tablets.